


The Alderaan Incident

by Hoborg



Series: Martian Fruits [2]
Category: Alan Mendelsohn the Boy from Mars - Daniel Pinkwater, Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Crack, Crossover, Gen, apocryphal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 09:14:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12554144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoborg/pseuds/Hoborg
Summary: “Whatwasthe ‘most memorable occasion’ when you asked the Borg to intervene, anyway?” Tohru asked.Alan smiled. “That was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”





	The Alderaan Incident

**Author's Note:**

> This is possibly a sequel to _The Puzzle of the Martian High Commissioner_. I’m hesitant to import the Star Wars ’verse into my Pinkwater!Martian setting, on top of everything else, so it may not actually have happened—but the notion made me chuckle too much not to write it up.

“What _was_ the ‘most memorable occasion’ when you asked the Borg to intervene, anyway?” Tohru asked.

Alan smiled. “It’s a good story, but you need to know that these Borg were not like the ones you may remember from television.”

“Let me guess, Rolzup messed with their heads and got them to calm down and stop assimilating people who didn’t want to be assimilated.”

“We didn’t have to. Before they ever met us, they’d assimilated a population of the Zetectic Elench—very similar culture, that, also space-dwelling, absurdly high-tech, and big on seeking out new life and new civilizations and absorbing the best bits into their own culture—but only by mutual agreement, and so that also became a key aspect of the Borg ethos. They’re excellent neighbors, now, if you don’t mind the Centre Georges Pompidou aesthetic.”

Tohru nodded. “So, they can actually be asked for help, now.”

“Right. And they also assimilated some Vogons at some point, I’m not clear on how voluntary that was or when it happened exactly.”

“ _Vogons?_ The terrible poets? What would the Borg want from them?”

“Their outright genius in the fields of government and bureaucracy.”

Tohru blinked at Alan.

“Yeah, everyone thinks of Vogon bureaucracy as horribly bad,” Alan said, “but really it’s perfect for what the Vogons want it to do, which is make everyone around them miserable—same as the poetry. The Borg assimilated the Vogons’ understanding of how to tune a bureaucracy to that end, and put it to more constructive uses. You remember how Agent た of the MIB is just as deadly with a treaty as she is with a ray-gun? Like that.”

“And this…made them the right people to intervene in some situation?”

Alan nodded. “That and their absurdly effective shield technology. So this is what happened, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

* * *

“You’re far too trusting,” Governor Tarkin sneered. “Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration. But don’t worry. We will deal with your Rebel friends soon enough.”

“No!” Princess Leia cried, watching helplessly as an enormous green laser beam struck Alderaan’s planetary defense shield, which could not possibly stand up against such a powerful weapon—and yet it did, seeming to grow brighter and more solid as it absorbed the energy.

After five seconds the laser shut down. The planet was untouched. Tarkin, Vader, and Leia could only stare at the defense shield, still intact, as six mysterious space vessels broke from cover behind the planet and boosted toward the Death Star.

The sensor officer was still paying attention to his duties. “Incoming vessels conform to no known design. Roughly cubical, three point two klicks on a side, no IFF, no markings, one minute to missile range…and they are hailing us.”

“Put them on,” Vader said.

A harsh, metallic voice. “Unidentified battle station, this is Excessionary Task Force 23–4 of Borg, defending Alderaan at the request of the Martian High Commissioner. You have fired a K2-class weapon of mass destruction at a civilian target in violation of the Galactic Constitution. You are all under arrest. Heave to and prepare to be boarded. Resistance is futile.”

“The Galactic Constitution lapsed with the Republic!” Tarkin said. “We are acting on orders from the Emperor. You have no authority over us.”

The cubes kept coming.

“The laws of war do not ‘lapse,’ and they are enforceable by anyone,” the harsh voice said. “Your orders are illegal and you should have known them to be illegal. Your Emperor will also be prosecuted.”

“This is pointless,” Vader said. “All weapons, fire at will; destroy those ships.”

Before the weapons crews could react, one of the cubes spat out a projectile, apparently fighter-sized, but it accelerated and maneuvered like a missile, dodging point-defense fire with impossibly sharp corner turns. Only seconds later it slammed into the Death Star’s outer hull, and although it was tiny compared to the battlestation, the entire structure shook with the impact. All the lights went out, and the gravity wobbled crazily, throwing everyone to the floor.

“Damage report!” Tarkin shouted, staggering back to his feet as the emergency lights came on.

“Minor hull breach in sector 12C—one compartment open to vacuum, no casualties reported,” said a technician at one of the only consoles that appeared to be working. “But there was a huge power spike and the safety interlocks shut down _all_ the reactors! We’re on emergency backups—maintenance computers, communications, and life support only. No weapons, no shields, no helm. We’re helpless till at least one reactor recycles. Half an hour minimum.”

“Can we launch TIE fighters?” Vader asked.

“Not unless you want the deck crews to crank the landing bay doors open by hand!”

“Why does no one ever believe us when we say resistance is futile?” said the harsh voice over the comm. “Your computers are under our control. Power will be restored when we choose to restore it. We are dispatching boarding parties now. We advise you to cooperate. 23–4 out.”

At that moment, three mostly-human-looking soldiers materialized in the room, in an odd shimmer of light. They each wore black body armor and a jumble of cybernetic widgets. Vader was facing the wrong way to see them, but Tarkin wasn’t; he had his blaster out instantly, aimed and—nothing happened.

“No blaze of glory for you,” said one of the soldiers. “Your weapons have been rendered useless. You will surrender, or you will be incapacitated.”

Vader spun around and pointed at the soldiers with a claw of one hand. Nothing happened then either.

“We were specifically warned about you,” the same soldier said. “Did you know it is possible to prevent the use of the Force within a small area? We assimilated the ability from a species native to the planet Myrkr. And we can modulate it—” he reached out, and Vader’s lightsaber flew free of his belt to the soldier’s hand.

Vader couldn’t look startled under his mask, of course, but he did flinch a little. Then he shrugged. “It seems you have every advantage. I will cooperate, for now.”

The other two soldiers were moving about the room, handcuffing each technician and stormtrooper and sticking some sort of tag to their uniform, after which each would vanish with the same odd shimmer of light. Tarkin waited for one to get near and then sucker-punched her; she rolled with the punch, grabbed his arm, and slammed a stun rod into his face. He hit the deck and didn’t move. She cuffed him and tagged him and moved on to Vader, who held out his hands for the cuffs like all the techs. And then he was gone too, and it was just the cyber-soldiers and Leia. To her surprise, they approached only to about three meters away, stopped, came to attention and saluted her.

“Princess Leia, we were asked to look for you,” said the first soldier. “Your father and the Martian High Commissioner request you join them on Alderaan at your earliest convenience. The bulk of our forces must remain here until we have completely secured this battle station, but we will detach a small craft for your use, and a pilot, if you need one.”

“I would appreciate that very much, thank you,” Leia said. “Only, who is this Martian High Commissioner?”

“That’s a very long story,” the soldier said. “And not ours to tell, but he’ll be happy to, when you meet him.”

* * *

“…and then we spent the next decade dismantling what was left of both the Republic and the Empire and reassembling galactic civilization to the point where it wouldn't collapse into civil war again the moment we left. Vader was actually quite helpful once we got the Emperor out of the way. Still not what you would call a _good_ person, but prepared to make amends for what he’d done, and we can work with that.”


End file.
